How long does it take to write a novel? “A hack writer can tell,” William Faulkner once said. “'As I Lay Dying' took six weeks. 'The Sound and The Fury' took three years.”

Wiley Cash is no hack writer, but his latest effort does bring up the timing issue.

The author has said he worried over the manuscript for his first novel, “A Land More Kind Than Home,” for five years. An astonishing Southern gothic page-turner, the book detailed sinister deeds among a North Carolina congregation of snake handlers, drawing comparisons to Faulkner, Harper Lee and Thomas Wolfe.

Now, not two years later, he returns to rural North Carolina with a fast follow-up, “This Dark Road to Mercy.” The new book isn't a sequel, nor is it all that similar to his first in tone or precision.

“This Dark Road to Mercy” begins as a coming-of-age story, but by the finale reads more like a by-the-book crime novel. This baseball story's “pitch” is off — just slightly. While nobody's denying the author's aptitude with language, Cash's many converts can hope “This Dark Road” was only a brief diversion through the sophomore slump.